Tuesday, June 6 2006 17:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Plagued by the high crash rate involving MiG-21 fighters dubbed as 'flying coffins' in the recent past, the Indian Air Force today said the accident rate has been brought down to an all-time low this year.

"From an all-time high of 1.84 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying in 1972-73, we have brought down the accident rate to all-time low of 0.44 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying in 2005-06" Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia, Director General Flight Safety and Inspections at IAF headquarters said here.

Fighters registered a 57 per cent drop in the accident rate, helicopters by 15 per cent and trainer fleet by eight per cent, Ahluwalia said claiming that the IAF was now on par with air forces like USAF, Russian, Royal British and French air forces in its safety record.

Attributing the improvement in flight safety to identifying the root causes of accidents and effecting improvement in technology, training of personnel and operating atmosphere, the officer said IAF did not intend to rest on its oars and wanted to institutionalise safety measures.

As part of new safer flying measures, Ahluwalia said the IAF was in the process of inducting flying simulators for all types of fighters in its inventory and also going in for tie-ups with other countries to use their flying simulators on Payment.

The air marshal said the IAF had commenced the phasing out process of older versions of MiG-21 fighters brought from the erstwhile Soviet Union in the late 1960s and 70s.

Type 77 inducted into the IAF in 1964-65 would be phased out by 2009-10, type 96 of 1973 by 2015-16 and the Type 75 of 1978 by 2020-2025.

Type 75 was recently upgraded with new radars, cockpits, mission computers and 'beyond visual range capability, being rechristened 'Bisons'.

The Bisons, according to earlier IAF estimates, were to fly only till 2017 but now they would be in service till 2025.

Along with MiG-21, Ahluwalia said IAF had also commenced phasing out of ground attack swing wing MiG-23 and MiG-27 fighters.

"All the MiG-23s would be phased out by 2008 and MiG-27s by 2015-16," he said.

He said IAF had introduced more focused flight training for air crew, improved standards of Court of Inquiries probing air crashes and mandatory carrying out of safety audits of all IAF bases in its efforts to improve safety measures.

It was also now sharing flight safety measures and records with foreign air forces flying similar types of aircraft, Ahluwalia said.